Wow. July 14. November 7. I really have no words. If there is one thing I have learned the past few months, it is that I am not meant to be a blogger, I think I am just not hip enough.

I have just over a month left in Uganda, which is kind of crazy. My time here has flown (crawled) by.... I don't really know how to explain it. Right now I'm living in a village with a family of 12 children and occupying my own hut. I have been there for about a month and I have the rest of November there. Living in a remote African village has been a learning experience to say the least. To be honest, it's hard to put a finger on what exactly I have learned..... sometimes it makes me question if I have learned anything at all, but I'm pretty sure I have. At the very least, I think I now know myself better than I ever have. There aren't many things I can distract myself from myself here, so it's like all my shortcomings, quirks, OCDs, failures, and doubts seem to pop out all the time.

So I think I will leave you all with a clip from my last 'self-assessment' letter, an update on ourselves that each of the HNGR interns sends back to the HNGR department. And if the internet cooperates, I will also attach some pics!

Word.
Rae


A brief description of these pictures:
(1) Some of my brothers and sisters sitting in front of my hut.
(2) Some of my bros and sis's eating lunch after coming back from school. (The way we eat here is very communal, I like it a lot. Kwon, the staple food in my village is in the blue plate in the middle of the mat. We all share that one plate, pinching a piece of kwon off and dipping it into your individual bowl of beans. Yum)
(3) I teach Primary 6 and 7 classes in mathematics. (P6 and P7 are essentially 7th and 8th grade). This is me and my P7 class. The P6 class is twice as big....

7/11/08

My host dad here is devoutly Catholic and even volunteers his time as a catechist in the neighboring parish. This has been a great blessing for me being that I don’t have much of a Christian community here, at least not like what I was expecting. So recently I have tried to take advantage of the presence of this man who has such strong faith in God and the Church, something that I know better now than ever that I lack. Often when we sit outside together listening to the chickens cluck and watching his small children play and greeting neighbors on their way to fetch water, I ask him those seemingly basic questions about God that, though you would think they have equally basic responses, answering them takes a lot of time and depth and thought (at least for me). And even with all those inputs, I am still often left without answers. So I ask my dad because even though I may not get a fool-proof, unassailable answer, it is his unique perspective and experience that I really want to hear. Why does God allow bad things to happen like Kony’s war in the North? Why are there rich people and poor people? What is the purpose of the Church and why do we call it the Body of Christ? Why does Jesus say the Gospel is the good news for the poor? Like clockwork, I ask my question, he looks down at his hands, leans back in his chair, takes a breath and says “You know…”, and then starts to reflect on the posed question. I usually don’t give my own opinion or thought unless he asks. I just try and take it all in, everything that he is saying without first criticizing or analyzing it in my head, I just want to take it and hold on to it. Not all of his responses reflect the marginalized perspective that I hope to find or that we often read about each month, but the truth remains that he is living on the margins, and I want to genuinely listen to what he is saying. I think the most beautiful part of his reflections is how much he sincerely believes what he is saying, as if it is fused together with the deepest part of him, and he has no choice but to let this faith of his shape his life, actions, and relationships entirely.

With a little more than a month to go, I want to be very intentional about listening to people. I know a lot of us have talked about listening to people’s stories as a way of identifying with and affirming who they are and what they have seen. Maybe I’m just echoing this sentiment. But as I find myself thinking about and preparing for my return home, I don’t want to be distracted from these marginalized voices telling me about their lives and beliefs and hopes, because I know when I get back to the States/Wheaton life those voices will be much harder to hear.